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Monday, 28 March 2011

I've been a busy bod the last few days, I finished painting 3 more plaques for collection and posting tomorrow, I really like the turquoise of the car.

The colours for Chloe's plaque match
the colours in her bedroom.
It's not noticeable in this pic but the plaque is sprinkled with fairy dust and what girl doesn't like a bit of magical fairy glitter?

And what can I say about Harry...... He's a big Spurs fan and wanted something to hang on his bedroom door.
The Rooster standing on a ball is Tottenham Hotspurs emblem.

As well as painting my plaques I have been uploading some of my old paintings onto the computer, these are two that were part of a nature exhibition I took part in a few years ago. I love the effect of the paint, it looks good for this type of subject.

Both of these photo's were taken when the picture's were in their frames so didn't turn out so good but they are some of the only copies I have of these.

I lost a lot of my good copies of paintings when my computer decided to crash and die a couple of years ago, since then I've always backed up my pics on an external hard drive.

I have some of my paintings, plaques and other bits and bobs in a lovely local shop and as all my toadstools paintings and fairy doors sold well I need a few more to replace them and I do enjoy making them.

The shop is Oshuns Emporium ,please find a link to their facebook page Here

Thats all from 'ickle old me for tonight, it's getting a bit late and I need a bit of shut eye, another busy day tomorrow so it's off to beddy byes ............. nighty night all

Friday, 25 March 2011

The neighbours are at it again, why oh why can't they just get on.... I was working away painting my plaques and I heard one hell of a din outside, being a bit on the nosey side, as most of us are, I stopped work, it was time for a break anyway, I looked through the window and watched in fascination as Mrs Squiggle and Mr Mag were having a real humdinger over a peanut... a peanut of all things, it's not like there wasn't enough to go around.

Mr Mag squawked and jumped from branch to branch and was dive bombing Mrs Squiggle while she barked at the top of her voice, waving her tail all over the place. This went on for 10 minutes until they decided to go their separate ways. Peace at last, but for how long, they were like this last year, if it wasn't about food it was the location of nests and drays. I know it's going to start again because I seen Mr & Mrs Squiggle trying to relocate their winter home into the Mags' fir tree.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

I've had a busy week thus far but except for a couple of plaque orders I haven't done any painting.

I have had my sister and my mum visiting for a few days and its been really great, we live 220 miles apart and we really don't see enough of each other, thank goodness for phones I say.

So instead of showing you something new I've made I thought I'd show you a couple of my favourite things, toadstools and ammonites.

These are beautiful, I don't know what type of wood (or seed pod)? they are made from or anything about who made them, I bought them at a craft fair many moons ago and love the shape, colour and texture of them.

This is something I made when my children were small, it is made using air dry clay and painted with acrylics. The tops of the toadstools are made like little cups and they balance on the stalks. I have lots of toadstools around the house and garden, I adore anything faerie or mystical related.

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

It's turned out to be a bit of a grey day today, I was hoping to go into the garden for a while and get a bit of tidying up done but it's still a bit on the damp side and I'm a bit of a lazy gardener so will use the fact that there is still a bit of mist hanging around to decide not to do any garden work. I did go for a short walk though, not very far I grant you but a bit of fresh air and 'minimal' exercise is good for heart and soul.

I made the mistake of not taking my camera....
(note to self - need to take camera, need to take camera!!!)

I live on the edge of a village and lucky enough to be within walking distance of some lovely views. Today I walked to our local warren, it can be a bit of a bleak area and today, with the mist lurking around like a sulky teenager who'd been dragged off to visit the oldies, it was a bit drab looking. I should of gone earlier, there was a bit of a shy sun peeking out a couple of hours ago.

This picture wasn't taken today but it gives the idea of how bleak the warren can be.

I can see a stand of Scots Pine from my kitchen window and earlier with the sunshine the mist looked clean and bright and was happily dancing and playing tag among the trees.

I have done some work today, it's not all been walking in the wilderness, after doing the laundry and boring things like housework I managed to get some of my plaques finished off. I had put on the final coat of varnish last night and this morning I threaded them with their ribbons, all I need to do now get the photographs done.... I'm off now to make cuppa, I might even have a biscuit with it, then I'll do the pic's, (must check the batteries)

Sunday, 13 March 2011

The last Plaques I made have been posted and are now in their new homes, they were well received I'm pleased to say.

The first one is the design I done for the ACEO's in my previous post, this was initially requested by my customer after seeing a similar plaque in my face book album, the one in the album has kittens painted on it and the request was 'the same sort of thing but puppies' which made it a bit easier for me.

I have built up quite a large archive of past work and by photographing them it is not only a good way of keeping track of what I have done but good for the customer to look at before deciding what they want.

The Balloon plaque was a design that was chosen by the customer who requested 'hot air balloons in bright colours'. I had not done a hot air balloon before so I done a bit of a sketch and sent it over to my customer to ok (or not), happily she loved it.
I love the way the colours turned out especially the blue, it is very fresh looking.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

I've just put some more things on Folksy, I don't know how they will do on there but I won't know til I try now will I?
I put 4 ACEO's on there, for the uninitiated that stands for "Art Cards, Editions and Originals".
These cards have one main rule - they are 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches - the size of a trading card.
The 4 I put on are all puppies. I got the idea from a wooden Name Plaque I have just finished, I loved the pictures of the pups I done so thought I'd give it a go, I've seen lots of aceo's on different sites and they vary tremendously in style, skill and mediums.

I painted these in such a way that the four pictures can be moved around in any order and the grass and the clouds will still line up.

So they are now in my folksy shop if you want to check them out.
(If they are no longer in the shop then they have been sold.... Yay..dance around the room)

Now I'm off to clean up the mess in the kitchen where I have been painting.....

Monday, 7 March 2011

I'm in the process of painting a couple of Name Plaques and literally waiting for the paint to dry, I certainly don't want to just sit and watch it so I thought I'd peruse some blogs I like, I've picked this one to be my first blog to follow, you can find it atSparkle Accessories

Thursday, 3 March 2011

I can hardly believe that March is with us already, the last 2 months have just flown by.
February was a busy month for me, I have managed to get my facebook page a bit more established, I'm really pleased about that, the biggest thing that helped was a fair that I done in January, I managed to give out a lot of business cards and hey I now have a load of 'likes' on my facebook page.

I have my Folksy shop up and running, I haven't sold anything up to now but there's time yet. Even though I'm very excited about everything it's all a bit daunting, as you may know I'm not very computer savvy but I am learning as I go along. My latest thing is this blog, I'm getting the hang of it and I'm sure that things can only get better. I've been playing around with the design settings and up to now my theme has been green, then blue, then I decided I liked the dark red better, I then decided that it was a bit difficult to read with such a dark background so I've changed it again to a pale green, it will probably have many changes, I imagine I will never decide on just one theme, there are far too many choices and I want to try most of them.

So back to March, what will this month bring, it's already brought out the first flowers in the garden and the hedgerows, the trees are budding and the sun is shining (sometimes). It is not warm though, by any stretch of the imagination. Brrrrrrrrr
I've seen my first lambs of the year, happily gambolling and frolicking away in the field and I've also been lucky enough to see my first hare of the year.

Do you like him?

Today I finished an order of plaques, a monkey and a rabbit, no photo's as yet, I'll hopefully be doing that tomorrow and getting them up on my facebook. I've also been playing around with some fairy doors, A friend who has a shop want some to display. I done my first ones many moons ago when my not so ickle kiddies were really ickle. I used to do them out of paper mache or air dry clay but I'm thinking of doing a few out of wood, I think wooden ones will be a bit more robust, they can also be done for outdoor use. More on that later.